Hate the Golden Knights all you want, but recognize the beauty behind their story
And how they helped unite a city together after an awful tragedy
Never forget Oct. 1, 2017
Can’t believe i’m about to defend Vegas. Fans need to quit acting like the league handed them a phenomenal team. No one expected that expansion draft team to be good. They took advantage of teams making stupid trades with them (i.e. my Wild with Haula and Tuch) Seattle did not
@mattlabelle This happens all the time, maybe not a sweep but plenty of presidents trophy winners have lost in the first round. How entitled do you have to be to think they deserve to go to the finals because of a regular season. Both teams went through two rounds.
@avsgrl19 Lmaoooo, legit the niners of the nhl. Excuses.
Stone scored more in 2 games than makar and mackinnon COMBINED. As well as your "depth" that you touted for a week straight talking about a sweepm
How opposing GMs gifted Vegas the winningest team in hockey at the expansion draft:
Bad Trades
• Anaheim traded Vegas Shea Theodore so they take on Clayton Stoner's $3.25m x 1y contract.
• Minnesota traded Vegas Alex Tuch so they would pick up Erik Haula instead of Matt Dumba or Eric Staal.
• Pittsburgh traded Vegas a 2nd round pick (Drew Commesso) so they would take on Marc-Andre Fleury's $5.75m x 3y contract.
• NY Islanders traded Vegas the 15th overall pick (Erik Brannstrom) and a 2nd round pick (Egor Sokolov) so they would take on Mikhail Grabovski's $5m x 1y contract.
• Tampa Bay traded Vegas Nikita Gusev, a 2nd round pick (Alex Texier) and a 4th round pick (Paul Cotter) so would take on Jason Garrison's $4.6m x 1y contract
• Winnipeg traded the 13th overall pick (Nick Suzuki) for the 24th overall pick so Vegas wouldn't select Tobias Enstrom.
Bad Protections
• Boston protected Kevan Miller over Colin Miller.
• Los Angeles protected Derek Forbort over Brayden McNabb.
• St. Louis protected Sobotka, Berglund, Reaves over David Perron and Jordan Binnington.
Bad Everything
• Florida traded them Reilly Smith for a 4th round pick, left Jonathan Marchessault exposed, while protecting Alex Petrovic & Mark Pysyk.
• Columbus traded them a 1st & 2nd round pick so they would take on David Clarkson's $5.25m x 3y contract. Then they exposed 43-goal scorer William Karlsson.
In total, they finessed:
• Shea Theodore
• Jonathan Marchessault
• William Karlsson
• Reilly Smith
• David Perron
• Brayden McNabb
• Marc-Andre Fleury
—
• Alex Tuch (huge part of Jack Eichel package)
• Nick Suzuki (huge part of Max Pacioretty package)
• Drew Commesso (huge part of Robin Lehner package)
• Colin Miller (huge part of Alec Martinez package)
—
• Erik Brannstrom & Egor Sokolov (became Mark Stone)
• Erik Haula (became Nicolas Roy -> Mitch Marner)
• Alex Texier (became Keegan Kolesar)
• Nikita Gusev (became Daniil Chayka, Lukas Cormier, and Jakub Demek)
• Paul Cotter (became Alex Holtz, Akira Schmid, and Mason Moe)
The league's got no one to blame but themselves.
@frank_seravalli@GoldenKnights Its completely disproportionate to previous punishments and lack thereof. Thats an indisputable fact. That said, the reason we are in that situation is because Bettman sucks at his job and should be fired. Why should Vegas be the one to finally recieve a punishment?